15. WILDCARD WEEK - EMBROIDERY¶
This week we were tasked with using digital process (incorporating computer-aided design and manufacturing) not covered in another assignment. I chose embroidery because it is tool I was always interested in using for personal projects. (My brother has a band and would love a small run of high end merch)
Group Assignment¶
No group assignment this week.
Individual assignment¶
I chose to embroider a simple single colour logo onto a shirt as my assignment. The challenge was learning to use a new piece of software to format the image into embroidery data and to understand a wide array of settings available.
The machine¶
The embroidery machine we have on hand is the Brother PE550D. Admittedly, it looks a little juvenile with the Disney branding, but when our lab was looking to purchase an embroidery machine it had more features and was better priced than others in our price range. This machine can only handle a single colour thread at a time. It would be great to have an embroidery machine that could embroider multiple colours in the same run, but those units were an order of magnitude more expensive.
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The software¶
You can’t just take a JPG or SVG image file and stick it into an embroidery machine and expect it to work. The image you are trying to embroider has to be analyzed and converted into a special format. The creation of the file type is somewhat akin to the operation of a 3D printer slicer, with just s many settings that can be fine-tuned.
I looked into purchasing an embroidery machine for personal use back in 2015, but I decided against it. This is because at the time there seemed to be no free software to create embroidery files, and even the paid ones seemed quite difficult to use. This is not the case now, as there is free software available and the paid ones are much more user friendly. We wanted to stick to free software so we could teach remote workshops without having participants pay for software. All of our research pointed us in the direction of Ink/Stitch. It is an add-on for InkStitch, which is great because we already use InkScape in some of our other programs, so sticking with a somewhat familiar interface is an advantage.
After InkScape has been downloaded and installed, you can check to make sure it is listed under the extensions here:
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failed first attempt.¶
The image I initially wanted to embroider onto my shirt was the Targaryen logo from game of thrones:
Targaryen Logo
However, when I attempted to embroider it onto a sample cloth we encountered problems.
- The thread on the needle kept breaking. Luckily the embroidery machine is able to detect when the thread has broken or is missing and pauses the job to be rethreaded. The problem with this is that whenever the job pauses and restarts, it introduces a flaw, and once there are a few of these the design doesn’t look good. The needle needed to be rethread about 15 times before we cancelled the job.
- 2needles broke. I think this was the end result of all the stopping from the broken thread. Restarting the job often causes a bunching up of excess thread, and I believe that the needle got caught on this clump and broke. WE had lots of spares though.
- Eventually the sample cloth I was working with got a small tear. The cloth was a thin synthetic blend, rather than the thicker full cotton I intended to use for the final. The stress and pulling of so many needle pricks eventually broke the integrity of the cloth in a couple small spots.
What went wrong? - The image we were trying to embroider was very intricate, so there were lots of needles puncture points needed with very short spans between them. In fact the design would have taken over 22,000 stiches. Doing an embroidery job this intricate will probably require allot more fine tuning of all the possible settings, but I believe it can be done.
- In order to actually get a finished product, I downsized my ambitions to a much simpler drawing. Despite being the same physical size, this one was much simpler and ended up using only 2,700 stiches.
Creating the software file.¶
Allot of my screen captures were from the failed Targaryen logo job. But the same steps were taken again when doing the final job (Stargate logo).
-1. Import image into InkScape. This one happened to be a PNG file.
-2. use “trace Bitmap”.
-3. Delete the original image after the bitmap is created.
-4. Go to the “Extensions tab” -> “Ink/Stitch” -> “Params”
-5. change the spacing between rows to 0.20
-6. Save the file as a “Ink/Scape Brother Embroidery file (.PES)” file type
Here are the files created: The failed Targaryen file The successful stargate logo file
Setting up the job¶
I ran the thread through the machine as indicated on the body of the machine itself.
A stabilizer backing sheet has to be placed underneath the cloth being embroidered on. The cloth and the stabilizer backing are pulled taught and locked into the frame.
The frame was locked into place. because our shirt was a somewhat awkward shape, we used bull clips to secure the extra cloth so that it wouldn’t fall into the embroidery surface while everything is moving around.
After the file is loaded, just press the green button to begin embroidering.
Then remove the item from the frame, and peel away the stabilizer. This is what the underneath of the job looks like after the stabilizer is removed. There is a bit of stabilizer still there, but that’s not a problem, removing the stabilizer is just about the clothing item feeling a little more comfortable against the skin. The underside of an embroidery always looks a little flawed as this does (you can check any embroidered cloths you have to verify)
And finally wearing it:
lessons learned and future plans¶
- There is allot that can go wrong in embroidery. Understanding and mastering the wide range of setting in the software is the key to avoiding mishaps.
- I haven’t even scratched the surface of what this machine can do, even though it is a relatively inexpensive one.
- Later on I will continue to research all the options in the software. I want to be able to embroider that Targaryen logo I initially intended.
- After that the next step would be to make multi coloured prints.